Amazon offers purchases of Fox and ABC shows for 99 cents

Amazon challenged Apple by announcing 99-cent video purchases the same day Apple announced rentals.

Bridget Carey of The Miami Herald noticed Wednesday that Amazon's new Video on Demand offerings were being marketed as "to own," as opposed to Apple's new rental model.

The Seattle, Wa.-based online retailer is offering shows from ABC, FOX, and BBC, including "Glee," "Bones," and "Lost." The Amazon Video on Demand streaming service is compatible with Mac or PC and various set-top boxes, but videos can only be downloaded to a Windows PC and "cannot be transferred to iPods."

The timing of Amazon's new releases coincides with Apple's September 1 media event, where the company updated its iPod touch, nano and shuffle lines and revealed a new cloud-centric Apple TV.

The new Apple TV streams media instead of storing it, switching from downloaded to rented content. During the event, Apple announced a partnership with Fox and ABC to offer 99-cent rentals of TV shows through iTunes. Rentals must be watched within a 30-day period and expire 48-hours after the first viewing.

Recent reports claimed Amazon was working on a subscription video service, but gave no indication of Amazon's plan to offer TV shows "to own" for the same price as Apple's rentals.